“What do you think?” Katie asks, after showing me well over one hundred iPhone pics of their last vacation at the lake.

“Well,” I said. “Do you make love, or do you just fuck?” She says that she was saving herself for marriage, and that the boyfriend had no problem with this. I proceeded to inform her that, in my opinion, the relationship was doomed.

Tuesday — La Cipriani

“Isn’t he handsome? And a doctor! Do you think he is the one for me?”

Oh yes, the doctor Charlotte has been dating for two years. The only thing she ever talks about. For the last two years. I asked her if they make love, or just fuck. Her answer, a long diatribe of how “just fine” their sex life is and how that’s not all it’s about, how just holding hands is so very emotionally fulfilling, blah, blah.

I commenced to tell her that, in my opinion, I thought it would not last.

Thursday — Lobby Bar at the Savoy

Over a bottle of wine that cost 85 quid and a similarly overpriced plate of soggy, cold bruschetta, Zoe let me know that she has “never felt like this about anyone. It’s amazing.” So I inquired, do you make love, or just fuck?

“Oh, we make love, amazing love. The earth moves. The stars weep. It is sheer bliss personified.”

Sophie tells me of her new beau, of only three weeks. She verbally lists all the usual details that are disclosed in situations such as this. These go in one of my ears and on out the other. When her lips cease to move, I ask my usual question.

“Oh, we fuck,” she says. “Yep, it’s fucking, pure and simple.”

“Well,” I said. “This could be it. I think what you have here is the beginning of something beautiful.”

Tara Lynn Hawk is California born poet, historian and artist. Her work has appeared in Spilling Cocoa and a few small local concern publications. Visit: taralynnhawkpoet.com.